


Death Should Be Forever

by Phoebsfan



Category: Alias (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-26
Updated: 2003-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24670948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebsfan/pseuds/Phoebsfan
Summary: Irina's reasons for returning.  Time is that space between the tears.
Relationships: Jack Bristow/Irina Derevko
Kudos: 2





	Death Should Be Forever

I know what it's like to lose a parent. I know what it is to cry yourself to sleep because part of you is gone. To remember every day that half of you didn't love you enough to stick around. To wonder if it was something you did.

If I had been better at this, or if I hadn't done that.... So many what if's litter and clog your foggy brain. Little pin pricks of pain. Swollen eyes. Yes I know what it's like to lose a parent.

You're never the same again. Oh they tell you it just takes time. That you'll get on without them. But for anyone who has ever lost a parent....you know. Time is that space in between the tears. And yes it does get bigger... but it doesn't go away.

Which is why I never wanted to leave my daughter.

I wanted her to grow up happy and healthy. I wanted to be with her every day. I didn't want her to grow up with those questions. I didn't want her to carry those swollen eyes and misconceptions about my love. I wanted her to know always that I had no choice. That I would never leave her.

But since leaving her was something I had to do in order for her to have any kind of life, it was something I did. We make sacrifices for those we love. We do crazy insane things for them. Injure ourselves in the process, just so that they can go on. For anyone who has ever given up someone that they love.... you know.

It's not something you ever forget. In many ways it's like losing a parent. Time is just the space in between the tears. And when the person you give up is part of you, it takes much longer for that space to get bigger.

You still cry yourself to sleep, this time your arms ache for that one small part of you that is miles away. They are safe you know, and it is that thought that finally lets you drift off. But that doesn't keep the swollen eyes or the questions from invading.

Was there another way? What if they learn to hate you for your sacrifice? Will they ever understand just how much it killed you to leave them behind?

Things are only slightly different when death is involved. The physical symptoms are much the same but mentally it's a different story. The questions change you see. It's no longer, they didn't love me enough. It becomes sweet and innocent. Mom would have loved to see that or Dad would have been proud. There is no blame or anger cast on the person who has left. And the child doesn't feel so much rejection.

Yes initially there is a lot of anger and blame and rejection. But the questions don't linger. The issue gets resolved as it must. It's not a constant internal battle.

And so when I planned my departure, or my ultimate sacrifice, the illusion of death was the only escape I was willing to make. For Sydney's sake.

Now I suppose you wonder why I didn't just take my child with me, surely the KGB would understand that. It would have been just as easy to fake her death with mine.

And I supposed had the illusion that Jack and I had not been so real I would have taken Sydney with me. I was not forced to leave her behind. It was only Jack that I was to leave. But I could not leave him with nothing.

I knew he would need her when the truth came out. I knew Jack Bristow.... without her he would be nothing. He wouldn't care to live any longer. And I could not kill my husband. I know because I had failed to do just that when ordered to three months before my "death."

And so Sydney would have to stay. But I would leave her with no doubt of my love for her. Jack would continue for her sake, he would move on and they would live happily ever after....

I was naive. But I had to be if I was going to go through with it. Truthfully I had miscalculated. I didn't grasp how much my leaving would effect my husband. I didn't know it would shatter his world as it did mine. I left him our daughter for god's sake. She was supposed to be an anchor for the man.

Hell knows I could have used an anchor like my beautiful baby girl.

It is a truly callous person who leaves their child and cares nothing about their well being...I have yet to meet a parent that has abandoned a child and feels nothing for that child. When I was able, I checked in on my daughter and husband.

I remember I used to watch her arrive at school. Every April found me outside of her school building. I watched my daughter grow older through a rear view mirror in a school parking lot. I watched as she experimented with makeup and boys behind sunglasses and a wig. And no matter how hard it was to keep from approaching her, I returned every April, a week before her birthday and allowed myself a whole week to watch her every morning.

I made it a point to stay away for the rest of the year.

I watched her father abandon her as her mother had. I wanted to kill Jack for leaving her like he did. I wanted to shake him so hard, to try and make him see. I left him my daughter as a comfort. I left him the only good thing I had ever done in my life. I left him my salvation and he treated her like a stranger.

There were times when my little girl cried and I couldn't hold her. Times when I wished that I had taken her with me. Wished that I could kill Jack for what he'd done to our baby. But I couldn't hurt my daughter like that. At times she was the only thing that saved him from me.

My feelings on the matter were so mixed and blurred that sense was something I could never make of any of it. It was my only weakness. The only place where I was anything but confident. The one sure fire way of manipulating me.

And more then one man used that to his advantage.

And so my yearly visits had to cease completely. In order to save myself from destruction. In order to stay alive long enough to hopefully one day try and fix what I had so long ago destroyed.

It wasn't until later that I realized that those yearly visits were the only thing keeping me from totally selling my soul. After the contract with the devil was signed and paid in full. And by then the idea of coming back to my family and seeking forgiveness was nothing but an elusive dream. The kind that you know can never be.

When I looked in the mirror I only saw what Jack would say. I only saw the hurt in Sydney's eyes. It was better for her to think that her mother had died an innocent woman in a horrible accident.

But then Sydney found out.

I watched her face in that meeting. Watched a TV screen on the other side of the world as Jack told her about me. Sark breathed over my shoulders, laughed at her pain. At my pain. I'd never hated Jack more then in that minute. Never wanted to scream and cry and die in one second.

My baby girl hated me. Nothing else mattered or ever would matter again. Her face is burned in my mind and haunts me in my sleep. No one can comprehend the horror of that moment. No one can understand the utter desolation that claimed me. Words can not explain it.

Now I knew I could never go back. Better yet that she think I was dead. That she was never faced with the dilemma of facing me after she'd found out about what I'd done. That she never had to choose between her mother and the man she loved.

And then she was taken into custody based on the foolish ramblings of a man half insane.

I was in New Orleans that day. When she replayed my death. I'd been there off an on since Mardi Gras. We had a contact that we were dealing with there. Amid the sin and drunkenness of the traditional parade we made priceless deals. While beaded necklaces were thrown at the excited college age revelers, I helped obtain manuscripts older then the holiday.

That day, the one that Sydney found out I was still alive...my girl was a genius after all...and who couldn't see that coming with her parentage, the best of two countries.

I was in a laundromat as I watched her car plunge over and over again into the Pacific. They kept playing the footage and I knew who it was. I had no way to confirm it at first, but then my cell had rung and Sark had informed me it was my daughter in that car....

I remembered little after that. Just that I sat and watched my clothes spin around and around in the dryer. Spinning my mother's earrings in my ears. Her car plunging in the water again and again...my clothes spinning around and around. She knows...she knows...playing over and over again in my head.

My clothes stopped spinning...her car finally stopped plunging into the water and the record in my head turned into one cold hard statement.

It's time.

I fought it for long into the night. Stood outside on the hotel's balcony in the rain as it's icy fingers drenched my skin. It's time to go back. By the morning I had made plans to tie up loose ends and plan my escape again.

She would hunt me down and ask me those questions. The ones that I had hoped would never plague her. How could I leave her? Did she do something wrong? The ones I had tried so damn hard to prevent. But my baby girl was no longer a baby, she'd grown up. I couldn't protect her anymore. I had failed at keeping her safe from the knowledge of my past.

I had honestly hoped she would not find me until I had turned myself in. I didn't want her to think that I'd only come back because she had outed me. But again her genius worked against me. I knew in the back of my mind that I was taking too much time to wrap things up. I knew she would find me. Truthfully it was my own cowardice at facing Jack again that lead her to my door.

Going back meant facing the man I had wrestled with in my mind for years. My undoing. My desire. My hatred. My pride. The only man who had managed to throw me off guard. The one person who I had destroyed completely. How could I ever face him again?

Which brings me back to the idea of me being dead. They were never supposed to know I wasn't dead. If I was dead I would never have to face them again. He could go on hating me and thinking I was the devil, living with his own angry delusions. She could go on knowing I loved her entirely. But as soon as I walked back into the CIA I ruined that for them. When truthfully Sydney's illusion had been shattered before. I was there to help her see the truth. But as for Jack....

Well Jack didn't want to see the truth.

And now. Now we have illusions and lies and confusion.

I still wonder if it would have been better for me to really die that day long ago. To have let the cold water fill my lungs and sink my worthless form. To let them have a body to mourn over. But then I know that is selfish.

I am not invincible. I do bleed.

I know what it's like to lose your family, your hope, your salvation. I know what it's like to sit for hours in agony over the mistakes of your past. To watch as your daughter cries alone with no one to comfort her. To watch as the man you love wishes you death, tries to have you executed, tries to turn the only good part of you against you.

Yes, I know what it's like.

I'm still hoping that I can also find out what redemption is like. What forgiveness is like. What all those good and honest feelings are.

I am not invincible. I do bleed.

And sometimes it seems as if that blood is the only thing I have left.

There is something to be said about Arvin Sloane, besides the fact that he is a bastard and that I plan to take the honor of killing him myself, he is also too much like me in a way.

We are both obsessed with two things really.

Rambaldi and my daughter.

For years I watched him watch my daughter. Watched him pet and fawn over her while biting back the bile that would rise in my throat from their interactions. Emily was the only thing that saved him from my wrath at times.

I knew he was a snake. I knew he would never change his colors. And the idea that he had my daughter fooled made me ill. God, the way he treated her like she was his own. It made me nauseous to see him assume Jack's role. As if I'd ever have a child with such a greedy bloodsucking bastard.

And as for Rambaldi...

When you lose something of a priceless nature that nothing can replace there are a few options. You can sit around and do nothing, mope and cry and plead with a higher power for some intervention. Or you can lose yourself in something else. I've always like to see my self as proactive. I suppose that's one of the reasons that Rambaldi was so easy to get lost in.

His work is fascinating. It speaks sense in a world full of chaos. And it leaves you with questions that can't be answered. So you search for more on the subjects... Eternal life... to never lose those you love. To live forever and finally be able to atone for your many sins. To have as many second chances as you need in order to get it right. The man seemed to have so many answers. His manuscripts became scripture and I a religious scholar.

That would be putting it lightly.

I look at Arvin and see what I was.

When I finally found out he'd recruited my daughter... There were no words to explain my rage. I vowed to get revenge on the man. I'd beat him at his own game. I'd get Rambaldi and make him come grovel at my feet for more. He'd come to me for enlightenment and then I'd enlighten him. Oh, I'd enlighten him of all his past sins before I took my revenge.

And you can be sure it would be a very long and slow process of enlightenment.

When my people invaded SD-6, it was the first step in making Arvin nervous. His impenetrable sanctuary was quite easily penetrated. His priceless Rambaldi artifacts would be mine. I vowed to take everything he had, maybe then he would understand just what taking my daughter from...

I'll admit that I was jealous along with my anger. That when I thought of Arvin and Sydney I took it personally. I blamed Arvin for taking my daughter from me.

But I hated him for more then that.

I hated him because he'd tricked my daughter into a life that I would have kept her from. I hated him because he killed the man she loved. I hated him for making her cry. For killing her happiness. For ruining her life and controlling her future.

And I hated him for what he'd done to Jack.

It was enough to sign the death certificate I'd written for him. Enough to justify my hands tearing through his cold dead carcass, tearing every vital organ from him with my fingernails. I wanted the man to bleed. I wanted to be there when his breath left his body. I wanted mine to be the last face he ever saw. My words to be the last he'd ever hear.

I wanted him to know there would be no eternal life for him or his wife.

He wanted Rambaldi for one reason only... He'd hoped it would be a way for Emily to be free of the cancer eating at her. He'd hoped that it would ensure him life eternal. That he would have the power to grant life and take life away. He wanted to become his own God among men.

I vowed never to let that happen.

I was full of anger. Am full of anger. Of all the things that my leaving could have prevented... I never thought that Arvin Sloane would have been one of them. I thought that Jack would have at least protected her from that.

But that's my fault as well I suppose.

I have much to atone for.

There isn't enough time in our short lives to make up for what I have done. What I will do in order to avenge my family.

These glass walls were never meant to be permanent. They were only a means to an end. Are only a means to an end. I feel that end approaching more and more each day. They close in on me, steal my air and I feel as if I can't breath. The room shrinks and I am like a clown, stuffed into a tiny car, on display.

I can not sleep. I can't sit still. I need to be out. To be doing something besides rotting away behind these damn walls. I need to be closer to reaching my goal.

I need Jack to trust me. If this will ever work I need his trust. I need his faith in me again. And if it wouldn't be asking too much, I wouldn't mind his touch either. It always gave me so much strength and assurance. I never dreamed how much he had sustained me. How I'd fed off of his misguided love for my cover...

But when he comes to see me and I see the hate in his eyes. It becomes too much. All of it.

It's then I wonder if I will ever make it out of here. If I will ever make it up to them. If it's fruitless to even try. But I've got to try. I've got to get out.

If only to kill Arvin Sloane.

It's my right. My right as a mother.... as a wife. Even if I'm not entitled to be either. Killing Arvin Sloane is mine. And I will not let anyone else take that away from me. They can take my freedom and my family. They can take Rambaldi...but I will not let them take his death from my hands.

Ever.


End file.
